Actuators are used in a wide variety of application often to help control a wide variety of mechanical systems. For example, HVAC actuators are commonly used to control the flow of fluid or gas in an HVAC system. Such HVAC actuators can include, for example, air flow dampers, variable frequency drives, water valves, gas valves, as well as other actuators. In many cases, the actuators may include an actuated part, a motor assembly to move the actuated part, and a driving mechanism, such as a gear train or drive shaft, to transfer the rotational torque from the motor assembly to the actuated part. An actuator controller is often used to provide a drive signal to the motor assembly in order to control the position of the actuated part.
Such actuators often accept either a current based drive signal or a voltage based drive signal from the actuator controller. For example, an actuator may be configured to receive a current drive signal ranging from 4-20 milliamps. Alternatively, an actuator may be configured to receive a voltage drive signal ranging from 0-10 volts. These are only examples. The actuator controller must typically be configured to provide the proper drive signal type for the actuator to operate properly.
In some cases, the actuator controller may include a number of user settable switches (e.g. DIP switches or the like) for each output. An installer must typically manually set these user settable switches to configure the output mode of each output of the actuator controller to match the desired signal type of the connected actuators. For example, the user settable switches may be manually set to configure the output mode of the actuator controller outputs to either a current controlled mode or a voltage controlled mode, depending on the connected actuators. It has been found that manually configuring the output mode of such actuator controllers can be prone to error and/or time consuming for the installers, particularly when an actuator controller has multiple outputs that control multiple, and often different actuators. Thus, costs associated with installation may be reduced. Additionally, by removing the need for configuration switches, the actuator controller may be built at a lower cost.